If your child is an adept, focused and curious learner who has a deep empathy for others and a desire to delve into new areas of knowledge, you may have a gifted child.
I went to school. I was also a gifted child. Had I not been in school, would this have mattered all that much? I think so. Giftedness frames your personality. As a parent, it is important that you understand how your child interacts with the world, and giftedness is part of this.
Gifted children challenge you to reconsider the boundaries of learning. Traditional schooling may be too confining for them, and so might traditional curriculum. They want to move beyond the curriculum and explore.
Gifted children may want to do everything or may want to explore one thing in depth, to the exclusion of everything else. I get so excited about learning and doing that I forget that there are constraints on my personal time. This was a challenge for my parents to understand, and it would have occurred even if I had been homeschooled. Regulation of my time is something that I struggle with, because I am passionate and take on many, many activities. Homeschooling gives you the opportunity to teach your child how to self-regulate, how to remember that you need to eat, sleep, and breathe when you’re completely absorbed in a topic.
Gifted children have a deep sense of empathy for the world. Homeschooling gives you the chance to give your child more time to explore the need to change the world, however that might occur. It gives you the opportunity to introduce your gifted child to the wider community and get your child involved in that community.
Homeschooling also gives you the opportunity to allow your gifted child to grow up without labels, should that be what you wish for your child. I cringed when I wrote that I was a gifted child, because I dislike labeling myself as different. Everyone is different, and this is simply part of my difference. If you can homeschool in a way that embraces all of your children’s differences and needs, then all of your children will feel valued and free to be who they are, without labels.